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Each Heart of Wisdom unit study is full of hundreds of Internet links to interactive or informative Web pages. You don't have to search for information—we guide you—giving several links appropriate for each lesson.

We spend many hours investigating links in each lesson to find the best links. We use  a special system that searches AltaVista, AOL , Ask Jeeves, Business.com, FindWhat, Google, HotBot, Kanoodle, LookSmart , Lycos, Moreover, MSN, OpenDir, Sprinks, Teoma, Wisenut , and Yahoo!. From the thousands of results we get, we search diligently to find the best five to ten links for every lesson.

Click here to view a flash image—then click on the small boxes to view a small sample of the sites we suggest in the Ancient Egypt unit study.

Internet Safety!

Avoiding the Dangers of the Internet

As wonderful as the Internet is for education, it can also be extremely dangerous. Pedophile predators lurk on children's Web sites looking for prey, and pornographic and cultic Web sites are a simple click away. Strictly enforcing the rules below should curtail any potential problems.

Internet Rules:

• The number one rule—Never allow any child access to the Internet in a bedroom or private area. All computers in the home should be in view of all family members.
• Always monitor your child's Internet usage, either in person or with a monitoring device
• Draw clear guidelines so that children know it is not acceptable to visit sites you consider offensive.
• Check your Internet service provider's parental controls. These controls can block access to certain Web pages, chat rooms, newsgroups and other Internet resources that are not fit for children.
• Purchase blocking software for your computer. These programs block access to objectionable sites and prevent children from disclosing personal information. CYBERsitter and Net Nanny are two popular filtering software systems.
• Help your child pick out a screen name or user name. Avoid names that include a personal name and/or an age, such as Susie12.
• Never allow your child to use instant messaging and/or chat rooms unless you know the person they are speaking with and/or have monitoring devices in place.
• Teach your child not to give out personal information, send pictures or make plans to meet anyone over the Internet.
• Warn your child not to join any mailing lists without your permission.
  
• Encourage your child not to visit Web sites or respond to any messages that seem strange or scary.
  
• Encourage your child to speak to you whenever he or she encounters anything that makes him or her uncomfortable.
  
• Install a monitoring device. Show your child how you can view every site he or she visits. This should discourage any curiosity searches.

Monitoring Devices

The dangers of the Internet are too prominent to simply trust your child. A monitoring device lets your child know that you can see every site and chat he has had on the computer. I believe everyone with Internet access should install monitoring software. Several versions are available; at the time of this writing Spector Pro is the best monitoring software available. It was selected as the Editors' Choice by the experts at PC Magazine. Spector Pro provides the equivalent of a digital surveillance tape so that you can see the exact sequence of everything your children have done on the computer. It contains seven integrated tools that record chats, instant messages, emails sent and received, Web sites visited, keystrokes typed, programs launched, and peer-to-peer file searching and swapping.

In addition to monitoring and recording, Spector Pro has an advance warning system that will inform you when a PC being monitored has been used in an inappropriate manner. Through the use of keywords that you specify, this program is on alert, emailing you an immediate and detailed report of when, where and how a keyword was used—every time it is typed or appears on the PC, on a Web site or in an email.

If you use Internet Explorer or Netscape you might have tried monitoring with the browser's built-in history. It's hard to monitor using this approach because children quickly learn how to erase where they have been. Spector Pro runs in stealth mode and cannot be detected. The only one who can alter the monitoring is the person who has the password.

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